Flannery O'Connor's short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” centers around a selfish, hypocritical grandmother as she joins her family on their vacation to Florida. During the entirety of the trip, the grandmother constantly displays her self-centered attitude by secretly bringing her cat along, deceiving her grandchildren, and manipulating her son into visiting an old house she remembers. Even when the grandmother realizes she misremembered the location of the old house, she opts not to inform the rest of her family. Her vanity and selfishness ultimately cause the demise of her entire family. Alternatively, O’Connor introduces another major character in the story. The Misfit, an escaped criminal, and his companions witness the …show more content…
By altering her perception during this moment, the grandmother realizes that she had fooled herself into believing in her false superiority. Recognizing the harsh reality allows her to feel compassion for her family and the Misfit. Despite her enlightened transformation, she still falls victim to the Misfit’s punishing shots. The Misfit’s motivation for killing the family and for his criminal behavior overall derives from his time in the penitentiary. During his conversation with the grandmother, the Misfit reveals that “‘a head-doctor at the penitentiary said what [he] had done was kill [his] daddy but [he] known that for a lie’” (460); however, he denies the possibility that they threw him in the penitentiary by mistake, claiming that “‘they had the papers on [him]’” (460). The Misfit receives a punishment for a crime he cannot remember committing, which leads him to question whether the “punishment fits the crime.” His worries morph into a belief that he did not deserve the punishment they gave him, and this belief begins to increase the divide between his views on punishment and criminal behavior. This gap continues to widen until the Misfit no longer sees any correlation between crime and punishment. Because of his inability to see the affiliation
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” tells a twisted story of a typical family going about a road trip embedded with ethical pit stops along the way. The story revolves around a cynical grandmother and how her unconventional attitude and habits set the stage for an interesting turn of events. Through manipulative antics, a prejudice character and an ironic story line, author Flannery O’Conner creates a captivating tale that shines a lights on readers’ own moral codes. The author does this by making an example of a woman completely unaware of her own immoral acts.
The grandmother is portrayed as being a selfish self-involved woman who wants her way, a person with little memory, just a basic old woman living with her only son. The Misfit on the other hand is a man who feels he has done no wrong, but has just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but in the end comes too close to the truth, which scares him.
Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is the story of a family’s vacation tragically ended by The Misfit and his gang. On the way to their vacation spot in Florida, the Grandmother remembers a plantation in Georgia she used to visit when she was a young lady and desperately wants to see it. She tells her son, Bailey, what road it is on and everyone is excited to see it. After a while, the grandmother realizes that she was wrong about where the plantation was and becomes so upset at herself that she knocks things over in the car which causes a car accident. A passing car stops to help the family but the Grandmother realizes that one of the men is a murderer, nicknamed, The Misfit. While one of
Throughout her story, Flannery O'Connor provokes her readers with multiple allegories to allude in her belief that humans are nothing more than fallen creatures. In the beginning of her story, O'Connor introduces a some-what typical family preparing for vacation with their grandmother. During their preparation, the family illustrates just how disjointed and manipulative they truly are. As the story goes on, O'Connor provides more evidence for her readers, supporting her beliefs in humanity. Towards the end of this story the family has a run in with the Misfit, an escapee from prison. Unfortunately, their meeting results in the family's end. The grandmother recognizes the Misfit and begins a conversation with him, all while his goons are killing
A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor challenges readers to look at life through a different lense and causes her audience to make connections to the modern world from the text. Throughout the entire story, O’Connor addresses issues that are still relevant to this day by thoroughly developing each character and using each character to bring up issues that are intriguing to the audience. A Good Man is Hard to Find is a story that challenges readers to make connections and think about the world through a different lense. These thought provoking qualities are the reasons why A Good Man is Hard to Find is a must read for readers of all ages.
She observes that the expression on his face was “close to her own,” as if “he were going to cry”; the good man in The Misfit came out for a second, and she acknowledges it. A sudden twist of events occurs after what would seem to be a moment which would cause The Misfit to reconsider his intentions; he recoils when the grandmother reaches out to him and proceeds to shoot her three times, killing her. This can
Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find is one of the most well-known short stories in American history. A Good Man Is Hard to Find is a disturbing short story that exemplifies grace in extremity as well as the threat of an intruder. The story tells of an elderly grandmother and her family who embark on a road trip to Florida. The grandmother is a stubborn old woman with a low sense of morality. While on the trip, the grandmother convinces her son to take a detour which results in a broken down car and an encounter with a convicted fugitive, The Misfit. Although the grandmother pleads for mercy, The Misfit kills off the rest of her family. Through the grace she finds in her extreme circumstance, the grandmother calls The
The story begins with a Grandmother trying to convince her son, Bailey and daughter in law to take a vacation in East Tennessee rather than Florida because of the escape of an escaped convict known as the Misfit and the children have already been there (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012). The Grandmother’s grandson states that she should just stay home, in which the granddaughter replied that she would not want to miss anything, as she had to always go where the family went. The Grandmother dressed as a lady, and was the first in the car, hiding her cat in a basket so her son did not see it. “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” written by (Mary) Flannery O’Connor is about a grandmother who reminisces with her grandchildren on the good versus evil in the world.
When the family has an accident, the Misfit sees, and eventually kills
As the story progresses, the theme changes from being comical to being violent. Also, the reader's perception of the grandmother becomes more intense . As O'Connor said, "[t]here is a change of tension from the first part of the story to the second where the Misfit enters, but this is no lessening of reality" ("On" 176). The presence of the Misfit causes the story to become more of a mystery; therefore, the actions of the grandmother also become a mystery because the reader doesn't know what to expect from her. It is a surprise to the reader to find the grandmother become so sincere. The grandmother tries many traditional methods to keep the Misfit from killing
In the short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the misfit has the stronger beliefs as he never waivers from his belief no matter what the grandmother says. His actions in the story support what he says, to the contrary, the grandmother is saying the right words, but shows no true actions that she really believes what she is saying. The grandmother keeps telling him to pray, but he sees no point in it as his beliefs are that he doing just fine without him as he tells her “’I don't want no hep," he said."I'm doing all right by myself.’” (A Good Man is Hard to Find, pp. A-97). The grandmother tells the misfit to pray for himself but she never once prays for herself. This is a contradiction in her stated belief, if she truly believed it would help him with his problems, then she should be praying for herself and her problem that she is facing right then.
n the Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” we find out that the title indicates of what the story is about. The title actually came from the lyrics of a song written by Eddie Green in 1918. The title of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Conner is quite ironic really. The reader expects to eventually find a good man in the story, but is quite surprised at the ending of the story. The title "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is expressed clearly in this story by introducing a variety of male personalities that all have one thing in common, they are not truly good men.
A horrible epiphany of the truth about the plantation strikes the grandmother which then leads her family and herself to a mishap. It is significant that the story reveals how nowadays, circumstances are getting worse because before, everything was fine and this produces a positive effect to the young characters such as the grandchildren. Having said that, this is also the reason why they get into a misadventure where they encounter their vicious murderers.
I’ll give you all the money I’ve got!” (O’Connor 355). She is pleading the Misfit for her life only by saying the word lady repeatedly and offering him the money. She is also praising the Misfit by calling him a good man and trying to save her life. She was also careless about her family. When her family is taken down into the woods, she continues to talk to Misfit. She ignores the sound of when her son and rest of the family were being shot. She is apparently oblivious to many things. She was ignoring everything but the Misfit. “The shirt came flying at him and landed on his shoulders and he put it on. The grandmother couldn’t name what the shirt reminded her of” (O’Connor 354). The grandmother doesn’t even realize that shirt was her son Baileys. She had no interest in knowing where that shirt came from and what happened to my family. For the concern of her life only, she tries to persuade the Misfit the same way she tried with her family. “I know you’re a good man. You don’t look a bit like you have common blood. I know you must come from nice people!” (O’Connor 352). She is trying to manipulate the Misfit and hopes that he will bear her. She is thinking about no one else but the sake for herself. However she fails once again to influence the Misfit.
In the Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” we find out that the title indicates of what the story is about. The title actually came from the lyrics of a song written by Eddie Green in 1918. The title of “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Conner is quite ironic really. The reader expects to eventually find a good man in the story, but is quite surprised at the ending of the story. The title "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is expressed clearly in this story by introducing a variety of male personalities that all have one thing in common; they are not truly good men.